Tether
by SuperDuperLights
Summary: Everything is so fucking loud. 3x18 'Riddled'


Some ridiculous Kelly Clarkson song is blaring from the radio and Lydia gets the overwhelming urge to punch a hole in her car's sound system.

It's hard to think when everything around you is screaming for attention. Like the tires bumping along as someone pulls into the spot next to her, and the boys across the lot, stomping their fight and laughing.

Claire Johnson's three inch heels click past Lydia's car and she resists the urge to tell the girl to get the hell away from her… and to get less tacky shoes.

Claire waves at her and Lydia snarls: the sound of Claire's bracelets hitting each other is enough to make her want to rip her hair out.

She thinks it must be the lack of sleep that has her so irritable; the lack of sleep that must have gave her this migraine that's making it a challenge to stand up straight and walk into school.

Lydia, however, went to school after Jane Rogers' sweet sixteen birthday bash with a massive hangover. She braved school that Monday, unlike the other forty people invited, because no pain, no gain. So, she's taking on this migraine and she'll be damned if it slows her down.

…

It slows her down.

She hears the sound of teeth biting nails and pencils beating on desks throughout her Math test and has to put her head down so she doesn't throw up. It's overwhelming her. Her teacher asks her if she needs to go to the bathroom and Lydia all but runs to get away from the boy sitting next to her who's scratching his head vigorously.

She gets her hands wet in the sink and presses them to the side of her neck and she tries to just_ breathe_.

Her eyes flicker to the mirror and she's amazed, like always, that she can look so calm and composed while her mind is in a frenzy.

She's catches the scent of Delaney Marks and peeks into the stall next to the sink. Delaney lazily looks up from her phone, the other hand holding a cigarette.

"Ever heard of privacy?"

"Right. I'll make sure to respect that next time I'm in a public restroom. I smelled you from the hallway."

"Bullshit. You've been in here a good five minutes, just fucking pacing in your stripper heels and you didn't say shit."

Lydia rolls her eyes, "You might want to hold off on your addictions until after school. Can't get in to community college with a suspension under your belt… oh, wait, you probably can."

"What's up with you, Martin? You look a little frantic. Your nerves still rattled from that naked parade you had in the woods last year?"

"Cute, Delaney. I'm sure you'll still be laughing with one finger to your throat when you get lung cancer."

It's Delaney's turn to roll her eyes, as she throws the cigarette on the bathroom floor and stomps on it with her converse. She shoves past Lydia and flips her pin-straight blonde hair over a shoulder and scrubs her hands in the sink. When she finishes, she eyes Lydia, who has one hand pressed against her temple, eyes screw shut.

"I guess I can see why you'd be a little over the edge. If Stilinski had ended up dead, you'd be here with one less pathetic puppy to follow you around," Delaney smirks and lets the door slam behind her. The noise goes in one ear and bounces around Lydia's head like a chant.

Before sixth hour, she's leaning on a locker next to Scott's, trying to focus on what he's saying.

Everything is so _fucking loud_ that she barely manages to respond to his questions about whether she's all right. When he asks if she wants to come to the hospital to see Stiles, she says no. She doesn't think she'll be able to deal with seeing him on top of her hypersensitivity to everything.

…

She just doesn't get it.

Why wasn't he at the house? Why wasn't he laying there in the basement like she knew he had to be?

Mr. Stilinski had yelled. He had been so distraught because Lydia, Lydia had been so sure that this was where he was going to be and everyone trusted her.

Now they all must think she was losing it.

Sending them on a wild goose chase while Stiles was wandering around in the woods, barefoot in twenty degree weather and she was his tether, she was supposed to know.

But she didn't. She had been wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

She had failed the one boy who had never failed her.

Sure, he was "okay" now, but was he really? Because something is wrong with Stiles and she just doesn't get it. She doesn't understand how she can fix him and it's killing her, it's driving her up the wall.

This fucking noise, that's what's driving her up the wall.

She sits in her car and she turns the volume up because she doesn't know what it means or what she's supposed to do. She's supposed to know and she doesn't and it just, it makes her want to fucking scream.

She does.

…

He's not at the hospital anymore.

Scott doesn't know where he went and neither does Derek or the Sheriff or Nurse McCall.

How can they not know? Weren't they right there?

If she had been there, been with him instead of screaming herself hoarse, alone in her car going out of her mind, she would've seen where he went.

He was Stiles and she was Lydia and they know each other.

If she was Stiles, where would she be?

She doesn't know, she can't even guess because it's not Stiles, it's this demon, this trickster. This thing controlling Stiles and it's not okay. No one is supposed to get a hold of her tether.

She's not going to let some twisted nightmare destroy this sweet boy and she's not going to let her sweet boy be destroyed.


End file.
